Canada's International Reputation in Ruins

“The tar barons have held the nation to ransom. This thuggish petro-state is today the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen.” -- George Monbiot

It used to be that when people not from Canada thought about the country they did so with some sense of fondness. People used to think of Canada as a peacekeeper, a friendly nation with social standards that made its neighbor to the south seem like a cold-hearted corporate machine. Canadians could travel anywhere and expect to be greeted warmly. All that is now gone.

Europeans, who are much more politically and socially aware than most of us in North America, among others now view Canada as a backward, selfish petro-state only interested in raising its economic status in the international and industrial cash-grab economy. So amazingly destructive has Canada become in its pursuit of tar sand oil that people and institutions around the world are speaking out and tearing asunder a national reputation that took a hundred years to build.

Reports from the global climate change summit in Copenhagen are already coming in that show how Canada is trying every tactic and means possible to derail the talks and prevent any binding international agreements.

Yet as award-winning journalist George Monbiot puts it,

Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalization of the country…

In 2006 the Conservative Party government announced it was abandoning its obligations and targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%.

This is in contrast to Holland, which has far exceeded their Kyoto targets and still managed to grow their economy at more than double its projected rate.

After walking away from the Kyoto Accord, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007, it singlehandedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for carbon emissions in industrialized nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country that had done most to disrupt the talks.

During the meeting in Bangkok in October 2009, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada's obstructions.

A concerted campaign has now begun by member nations to expel Canada from the Commonwealth!!! Canada is a now an international disgrace!


And what for? The simple answer: OIL. Canada is developing the world's second largest reserve of oil. Actually it’s not even oil – but a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals. The tar sands, most of which occur in Alberta, are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth. An area the size of England is being dug up and sold to transnational corporations.

To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil. The contaminated water is held in vast tailings ponds, some so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface. Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers.

The First Nations people living downstream have developed a range of exotic cancers and auto-immune diseases.

Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes. Alberta's tar sands operation is the world's biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions. By 2020, if the current growth continues, it will produce more greenhouse gases than Ireland or Denmark. Already, thanks in part to the tar mining, Canadians have almost the highest per capita emissions on earth.

And who is Canada selling its future to?

The biggest leaseholder in the tar sands is Shell, a company that has spent millions persuading the public that it respects the environment. Syncrude is another major player. The other great greenwasher, BP, initially decided to stay out of tar. Now it has invested in plants built to process it. The British bank RBS has lent or underwritten £8bn for mining the tar sands.

The purpose of Canada's assault on the international talks is to protect this industry. This is not a poor nation. It does not depend for its economic survival on exploiting this resource. But the tar barons of Alberta have been able to hold the whole country to ransom. They have captured Canada's politics and are turning this country into a cruel and thuggish place.

It should seem very odd to Canadians that Canada is quickly becoming the most immediate threat to the sustainability and peace of our global civilization. But people all over the world are now waking up to this horrible fact.

The National Press is Also Following This Tragedy:

• 'Canada must reclaim its reputation by reducing greenhouse gas emissions' – Edmonton Journal

• 'How Canada can restore its reputation on climate change' – Globe & Mail

• 'Canada's Reputation Tarnished by Tar Sands' - Pembina Institute.